Poem Similarities and differences Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Poem Similarities and differences - Essay Example he first similarity which comes to the reader is the genre of literature since they are both part of the rich African American heritage that has been given to us. While the poems may be separated by time, they are certainly not separated in terms of the cultural background which is seen in the poems. For example, the role of the father as the supporter of the house despite his anger or frustration at the difficult situation he is placed in and the idea of having little but making do with what you have is obvious in both poems. A further similarity is the idea of love between family members even if that love is not expressed or experienced as it should be in ideal circumstances. However, that becomes another similarity of the poems since neither of the writers is presenting ideal circumstances and in fact, the circumstances are quite hard for the narrators in both poems. Hayden’s narrator has to deal with not understanding the love his father had for him while Giovanni’s narrator has difficulties in understanding why her family fights a lot. The last similarity is that both poems are written from the viewpoint of an adult looking back at childhood but strangely enough, they present a perfectly realistic view of their childhoods without sugar coating the facts. Instead of the idealized image of childhood as being a carefree and happy time, they recognize that they had little to go on and perhaps were not as good to their parents or to their family as they should have been. This also leads us to the differences between the poems as one is more forthright than the other. Giovanni’s poem not only describes a difficult childhood, the poem also describes how others in the future can take a distorted look at her early life. She notes that others coming after her to study her life may say that she had a poor childhood but she herself notes that her childhood was not as bad as future historians may think it to be. On the other hand, Hayden is more concerned about